


she never will be all mine

by queerwatson



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 04:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerwatson/pseuds/queerwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Joan braided Sherlock's hair, sometimes Sherlock would stay quiet and lean back against the couch a little instead of complaining, and those were Joan’s favorite nights. They’d never talk that much - mostly it was just comfortable silence unless Joan forgot herself and started to hum or sing. Sherlock, though, for her part, usually didn’t say much at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	she never will be all mine

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of silly and cheesy but it's for a friend's birthday so whatever - it's got poetry and lesbians, what more can you want? Poem is Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Witch-Wife," which is also where the title comes from.
> 
> Edit (2015): So I know that this is one of my more popular femlock fics, so I won't be editing it, especially since it's so old and so short, but I feel like I should say that there is some stuff in this fic that I would change if I wrote it now, particularly Jane's perception of her own sexuality as "mostly straight," so I would appreciate readers keeping that in mind - that this is old and not necessarily a fully accurate representation of the way I now view the characters. Thanks!

Apparently Sherlock wasn’t very good at keeping her hair long. Joan wasn’t really all that surprised, but any time she got up in the morning and found Sherlock sitting in the kitchen with her hair all sheared off at odd angles, she would sigh a little before plugging in the kettle. It was the third time it happened that Joan decided to say something.

“Do you keep lopping all your hair off for experiments, or is there actually a reason?”

Sherlock didn’t even bother to look up. “Gets in the way.”

“Why not just pull it back?”

“When it’s long, it’s everywhere, whether I attempt to tie it back or not.”

“Ever tried braiding it?”

For a moment, there was silence. Sherlock actually glanced at Joan this time, her eyes narrowed, and Joan just looked right back at her.

“I don’t know how.”

“Then I’ll do it for you.”

“...It’s hardly long enough now.”

Nodding, Joan finished the tea she was making and took a mug over to set next to Sherlock as well. “I guess the next time it starts bothering you, then, come to me instead of chopping it all off. I’ll see if it helps.”

Maybe it was sort of an odd arrangement, but Joan was able to admit that she liked Sherlock’s hair. Plenty of women thought other women had nice hair. Whenever she actually bothered to wash and brush it and leave it down, it was really sort of beautiful. Whenever they were chasing people, it blew out behind her, and... well. All right. It was part of Sherlock. For most of her life, Joan had been... mostly straight, but she’d been living with Sherlock too long to be in complete denial by now. She found her flatmate attractive. Nothing wrong with that.

She realized the trouble with the arrangement later... when she was woken up at four in the morning by Sherlock sitting down half on top of her legs, in her bed, demanding Joan braid her hair.

...Right.

Surprisingly enough, though, either it helped, or it was enough that Sherlock found it a worthy compromise. After the first time, before Joan would go to bed most nights, she would braid Sherlock’s hair in a fairly perfunctory way. She would always test the waters, though, starting out by playing with Sherlock’s hair more than she braided it, and sometimes Sherlock would stay quiet and lean back against the couch a little instead of complaining, and those were Joan’s favorite nights. They’d never talk that much - mostly it was just comfortable silence unless Joan forgot herself and started to hum or sing. Sherlock, though, for her part, usually didn’t say much at all.

One night, though, Joan was shaken out of her peace when Sherlock broke the quiet with a murmured, “What are you saying?”

She blinked. She’d been muttering under her breath... _She has more hair than she needs_... Oh. Right. “Just a bit of a poem I memorized in Uni. Extra credit for a class I wasn’t doing very well in.”

“You still remember it in its entirety?”

“Er. Yeah. I think so.”

Sherlock turned slightly, looking up at her, and Joan blinked.

“Could you recite it?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to hear it.”

Licking her lips, Joan looked down at her knees and sighed a little. She thought back over the poem and felt a flush creep to the tips of her ears. After a moment, she started to quietly reel off the poem - though she couldn’t remember who’d written it or what the title was to save her own life. She just remembered it was written by a woman - mostly because it had been a women’s poetry class.

“ _She is neither pink nor pale,_  
And she never will be all mine;  
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,  
And her mouth on a valentine.

_She has more hair than she needs;_  
In the sun ‘tis a woe to me!  
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,  
Or steps leading into the sea. 

_She loves me all that she can,_  
And her ways to my ways resign;  
But she was not made for any man,  
And she never will be all mine.”

After a moment or two, she glanced up, but Sherlock was looking down now as well. She went back to braiding her flatmate’s hair, but this time she stayed quiet until Sherlock spoke again, her voice still quiet, with something intimate in it.

“I didn’t realize you knew any poetry.”

“I like some. I don’t know much. Like I said, that was for a class.”

“Do you recall the author?”

“Not right now, no.”

“I’m surprisingly fond of it.”

Joan snorted. “Well it does suit you.” She didn’t really intend the implications, but she didn’t jump or regret saying it. If she had to she’d play it off as a joke or a misinterpretation.

“I’m not particularly inclined to agree, but I’m flattered, I suppose.”

“Practically the same thing you said to me the night after we looked at the flat.”

“This situation is entirely different.”

Smirking just slightly, Joan finished off the braid and stood, putting her hands at her hips. “And why’s that?”

Sherlock stood as well, looking down her nose at Joan as only she could do best. “I actually know you now, for a start. Also there’s a particular part of the poem I object to as being applicable. As in, I don’t believe it is.”

“Which part is that?” Joan had already moved into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea to take up to bed. Sherlock was just being Sherlock - probably something silly about her actually being really pale, which, all right, fair enough.

“Arguably if I am anyone’s - which is, in itself, rather a flawed concept, because I am a person and not an object - I would be yours. Who else’s would I be?”

Her hand paused, kettle plug in hand, halfway to the outlet. Joan blinked. “Er. Well. Your... your own, I suppose.”

“Considering the amount of sleeping and eating I do just to cater to you...”

That was where Joan’s mind tuned out for a bit, because... okay, probably still just Sherlock being Sherlock, but this was more than she’d been expecting to deal with.

“That’s not... that’s not really the point, Sherlock.”

“Then what is the point?”

“We’re not... I mean... Christ, I don’t know. But you’re not all mine. That’s just not... Not how it works.”

Joan heard her scoff, and looked up, finding Sherlock leaning against the counter right in front of her.

“How, precisely, does it _work_ , then?”

Eyes narrowing, Joan crossed her arms. “Still not the point, you twat. It was just... you know, it came to mind. And you’re you, and you’re gorgeous and brilliant and married to your work and all, so it sort of suited you. I wasn’t... trying to make a grand confession or anything. Honestly.”

Sherlock smirked at her, and Joan glared harder.

“It would have been rather a terrible one, if it had been.”

“You...” Joan had had enough of that, thank you very much. She leaned up, put a hand on either side of Sherlock’s face, kissed her square on the lips, and then turned back around to plug in the kettle with a nod - a sort of private ‘that’s what you get.’

For 30 seconds at least, the only sound was the kettle starting to warm up, and then Sherlock hummed.

“Unexpected. Still not exactly grand.”

This time Joan could hear the laughter she was trying to hide in her voice, and when she turned around trying to be annoyed, her lips started to twitch as well.

“You’re awful.”

“You’re not actually so bad. Though I’d have hoped you learned something with all those men you’ve been kissing around the flat. Honestly, I’ve lost count almost comple-”

With that, Joan was absolutely finished, and she pulled Sherlock down into a proper kiss this time, with a hand at the back of her neck. Not really the way she’d expected to spend her night, but no one seemed to have any complaints.

Later, flushing, lips slightly swollen, curled around Sherlock and very nearly asleep, she nearly sprang up.

“Millay. Edna St. Vincent Millay.”

For once, Sherlock was asleep, and only made quiet snuffling sounds that vaguely resembled something about cartilage in reply.


End file.
